David Crane was born in Nappanee, Indiana. He began working as a programmer and game designer for Atari in 1977. He wrote several games and programs for the company, but he became disgruntled at Atari's lack of compensation and recognition for its best programmers. In 1979, he, and several other programmers, left Atari to form their own software company called Activision. Crane's games won many awards and became some of the best selling games for the Atari 2600.

In 1986, after growing annoyed with the Activision's new CEO, Crane left Activision to co-found Absolute Entertainment with Garry Kitchen. There he programmed several games for the NES, which also became very popular.

In 1995, Absolute Entertainment went out of business, so Crane co-founded Skyworks Technologies where he still resides as Chief Technical Officer.

Crane is not a music composer, but in the early videogame industry, programmers were also responsible for adding music and sound effects to their games. Rather than rely on his lack of musical skills, Crane borrowed music from various sources and emulated them into his games.